Sunday, October 9, 2016

INTERSECTIONALITY AND MULTIPLE FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION

Multi-level and intersecting forms of discrimination have always existed,
although they have been more broadly acknowledged only in recent
decades. Age, socioeconomic status, racial or ethnic background,
religion, national origin, citizenship, status, health, particularly HIV/AIDS
and disability, as well as poverty and sexual orientation, are examples of factors that can exacerbate or otherwise influence the nature of
discrimination faced by women.

At the Fourth World Conference on Women, States recognized that
“many women face additional barriers to the enjoyment of their human
rights because of such factors as their race, language, ethnicity, culture,
religion, disability or socioeconomic class or because they are indigenous
people, migrants, including women migrant workers, displaced women
or refugees.” In the Durban Declaration, States declared that they were
“convinced that racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related
intolerance reveal themselves in a differentiated manner for women and
girls, and can be among the factors leading to a deterioration in their
living conditions, poverty, violence, multiple forms of discrimination, and
the limitation or denial of their human rights.” They further recognized
“the need to integrate a gender perspective into relevant policies,
strategies and programmes of action against racism, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerance in order to address multiple forms of
discrimination.”

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination also addressed
this in its general recommendation No. 25 (2000) on gender-related
dimensions of racial discrimination, in which it noted that “racial
discrimination does not always affect women and men equally or in the
same way. There are circumstances in which racial discrimination only
or primarily affects women, or affects women in a different way, or to a
different degree than men. Such racial discrimination will often escape
detection if there is no explicit recognition or acknowledgement of the
different life experiences of women and men, in areas of both public and
private life.”The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, in
its general recommendation No. 25 (2004), also emphasized that State
parties should address multiple discrimination against women by adopting
temporary special measures. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities is the first binding human rights treaty to explicitly address
multiple discrimination against women and girls, requiring State parties
to take measures to ensure the equal enjoyment of all human rights and
fundamental freedoms for women and girls with disabilities.

The Special Rapporteur on violence against women has recognized the
need to apply an intersectional analysis when researching gender-based
violence to demonstrate different categories of discrimination against
women.22 In a recent report on multiple and intersecting forms of violence
against women (A/HRC/17/26), the Special Rapporteur argues that
the elimination of violence requires holistic measures that address both
inter-gender and intra-gender inequality and discrimination. This means
that the analysis of gender-based violence should take into account
factors that increase women’s and girls’ vulnerability, such as geographic
location, level of education, employment situation, household size, marital
relationships, access to political and civic participation, race, skin colour,
intellectual and physical abilities, age, language skills and fluency, ethnic
identity and sexual orientation.